Is it too much to ask..........

OddballJamie

DUTR wrote: »

Now the last line, I agree with. Around here in the Midlands, the dealerships are reluctant to budge, I contacted a few before going along the broker route and as others have mentioned in this and other threads when you don't want to purchase their credit schemes they don't want to know.

I'm in the West Midlands and completely agree, I didn't want finance and once the dealers realise, they lose interest in you. I even had a Ford dealer so desperate, he was trying to talk me into a couple of schemes. Pay half now and half in two years, interest free but no discount on the car, or have finance at a massive APR so he gets the higher commission and does me a good discount on the car then clear it with cash one month later, or finally some half-baked combination of the two. The guy was well shady and far too interested in finance for my liking.

I ended up travelling to Nottingham for a new car due to the cash deal he done me. Although I have heard Lookers have been getting better on the non-0% deals.

motorguy

DUTR wrote: »

Why is that? It's not a lie, and you only have to look on the VW UK site at a nearly new/ex demo vs a broker price to see what I'm saying on the prices, also I'm not saying that buying a 1 year old car is never 'cheaper' than having brand new (and to the purchaser's spec) but it's not always the case.
Yes this is MSE and saving money is at the heart of many posts, saving money is somewhat a different motive to obtaining the cheapest and compromising all of the time, perhaps that is where our understanding of each other's posts vary .

Oh i know. With my wifes Z4 M Sport when we bought it last year worked out cheaper to buy new than to buy a demo or used one, as there were manufacturer backed incentives to buy new.

Same when i bought my 535d M Sport several years ago - it worked out cheaper to get a new one than to buy a nearly new.

When i bought my Passat TDI brand new in Jan 2010, i was walking past used ones on the forecourt to buy a brand new one that i had got for less. The same week my wife took deliver of a Prodrive modded Subaru WRX-S brand new and again you couldnt have bought one used for less.

BUT please dont try and tell me i could have bought a new Golf 105 1.6 TDI 105BHP with metallic paint at anywhere near the price i gave for a 9 month old one. Broker or no broker it cant be done, and to be honest the £6000 or so leap in price wouldnt have made any sense whatsover.

Its not a matter of being 'tight' - its about being sensible about the thing. To be honest a 1.6 TDI golf doesnt light my fire new or used but it was bought for a purpose and that purpose is to cover 25K a year of commuting.

My 'compromise' of not blowing another £6,000 to buy one new means i've money for 'toys' - currently an a6 3.0i Quattro Avant though its going to make way for a low miles 330Ci Sport coupe which arrived last weekend. Planning on getting another mx5 as a winter project with a view to maybe doing track days with my son in it next year.

I think theres a lot more fun to be had with that little lot than spending the extra £6000 on a car to do the same 55-mph-at-best 100 mile daily return commute that the golf is currently doing so admirably.

With your mk7 GTI, yes it no doubt made sense to buy new as there are so few used ones about.

But please dont say i'm 'tight' and that i 'leave it to others to buy new', its just simply that on this occasion, like many others for many people, it didnt make sense.

DUTR

motorguy wrote: »

Oh i know. With my wifes z4 when we bought it last year worked out cheaper to buy new than to buy a demo or used one, as there were manufacturer backed incentives to buy new.

Same when i bought my 535d M Sport several years ago - it worked out cheaper to get a new one than to buy a nearly new.

When i bought my Passat TDI brand new in Jan 2010, i was walking past used ones on the forecourt to buy a brand new one that i had got for less.

BUT please dont try and tell me i could have bought a new Golf 105 1.6 TDI 105BHP with metallic paint at anywhere near the price i gave for a 9 month old one. Broker or no broker it cant be done, and to be honest the £6000 or so leap in price wouldnt have made any sense whatsover.

Its not a matter of being 'tight' - its about being sensible about the thing. To be honest a 1.6 TDI golf doesnt light my fire new or used but it was bought for a purpose and that purpose is to cover 25K a year of commuting.

With your mk7 GTI, yes it no doubt made sense to buy new as there are so few used ones about.

That doesnt make everyone else wrong.[/QUOTE]

That's it though I wasn't saying everybody else is wrong, and your examples above back up my 'logic' until the MK7 arrived the MK6 were still asking silly money for used, but you just know the dealer has a good 25% profit margin on the screen price, have you also noticed that 'everytime you phone a dealership the new car sales reps are with customers and the reception always want to collect numbers for them to call back....no thank you.

motorguy

DUTR wrote: »

That's it though I wasn't saying everybody else is wrong, and your examples above back up my 'logic' until the MK7 arrived the MK6 were still asking silly money for used, but you just know the dealer has a good 25% profit margin on the screen price, have you also noticed that 'everytime you phone a dealership the new car sales reps are with customers and the reception always want to collect numbers for them to call back....no thank you.

No. They typically dont have that sort of margin. Gross, maybe if they were to sell a car for list price, but who pays list? After discounts and overheads i'd say with cars up to £20K theres probably £500 net if they're very lucky.

Net margins on new cars are very small, to the point whereby its hardly worth their while to sell a standard car to a cash customer with no insurance add ons or extras.

There is money in used cars but again, typically net margins are small as people simply search the net for the cheapest, and unless you've the life cut out of your prices already, the phone doesnt ring.

motorguy

gozaimasu wrote: »

Motorpoint have been mentioned. Wasn't the general consensus that they were to be avoided as they mainly had imports that didn't "comply with UK spec"?

What's the opinion on other car supermarkets? I've seen ones that say things like " At the time this vehicle was first registered, the standard UK technical specification for the model was:..."

I don't understand the import issue, but reading about it was enough to put me off going to motorpoint, and has made me skeptical of other car supermarkets.

Now you're talking brokers and I'm intrigued. I'm looking for a used 1.25 Fiesta, 2011/2012 with ~10k miles on the clock per year and ideally Zetec spec, or at least an Edge with air con and alloys. I don't want to pay more than £7k.

Thanks for the Lookers link, I saw this which meets my criteria:
http://www.lookers.co.uk/used-cars/133413/ford-fiesta
It's a bit further than I'd want to travel (currently car-less; a pain in the !!! to get anywhere) but I can only keep looking. Are they a broker?

Motorpoint have a lot of cheap steel wheelers. I've seen a few other cars from various places but they're all over my target price. I test drove a car a month or so ago and the dealer knocked £500 off straight away but wouldn't go any further. That car's now sold so he's laughing!

Have you tried Ford used car search on their website? When i was looking for my Golf, some VW dealers were just as cheap as supermarkets but had a better standard of car.

RE: discount, same thing happened me. The dealer was happy to give away £500 discount quite quickly but wouldnt move from there. I got another norminal £100 off after a fair bit of haggling but that was it.

And again that does depend on the car. I'd rather have £200 off a car priced at £10,000 than £2000 off the same car priced at £12,000 at another dealers - and yes i was seeing that much variance in pricing.

OddballJamie

gozaimasu wrote: »

Yes, I had a quick look at Ford Direct on the Ford website, but they were starting at £2k more than I want to pay - they were 2012/2013 Zetec models with low mileage and bigger engines than the Edge I was looking at.

I suppose if there are dealers out there who have me in their forecourt and I say I can get what I want for £6.8k, then maybe they'll drop from their £7.5k to bag a customer, especially now it's nearing month end.

Then they will sell you a £6.8k car.

Let them try to sell you the £7.5 car, then tell them it's out of your budget and see what happens.